Fuel-cell tech the key to successful carbon capture

Capturing carbon dioxide underground...

Whilst renewable energy struggles to convert heat to electricity through photovoltaic cells - a figure of around 25 percent - the science may become available to reduce the current carbon produced whilst creating electricity using coal.

The idea, created and entered into a competition for government funding, plans to use hydrogen fuel cells to increase energy efficiency at carbon capture and storage (CSS).

The process would, in theory, capture over 90 percent of the carbon dioxide produced by coal. Not only would the capture lessen the burden of carbon dioxide on the environment, but transfer electricity at a 60 percent efficiency rating (compared with the usual 37 and 44 percent efficiency for typical coal-fired power stations) with a possible cost of four pence per kWh.

"This is a completely new combination of technologies, with very significant advantages in terms of low cost and high efficiency," B9 Coal's director Alisa Murphy told The Engineer website.

"The capital expenditure on a turbine is considerably more than on the fuel cells and they're much easier to operate and maintain."

B9 Coal constructing UCG

B9 coal, who are leading the group of companies, which include fuel-cell developer AFC Energy and Australian firm Linc Energy, have high hopes of constructing an underground coal gasification plant.

AFC Energy and Australian firm Linc Energy have both successfully trialled fuel cells powered by hydrogen.

The advantage using fuel cell means the plant needn't run continuously: "In order to get the kind of efficiencies you would want from a turbine you would have to operate flat out," says Murphy. With the new plans, if the carbon levels increase during peak time, more fuel cells can be turned on. "This makes it a very commercially attractive model as well."

Murphy finished: "The government is talking about showing global leadership on CCS. "In order to do that you have to come up with something radically different that is about powering the future rather than looking back at old dirty technologies and trying to improve them."

The initial plan would be on site in Rio Tinto Alcan's Lynemouth Plant in Northumberland.

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The UK's first hydrogen highway | The cars of the future: Hydrogen or batteries? | Bloom Box: Establishing fact from fiction | Bloom Box: Electricity from thin air

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